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A costermonger sold fruit and vegetables from a barrow — a wooden cart pushed through the street — calling out prices to people passing by. The word is thoroughly historical and thoroughly London: costermongers were a famous part of Victorian street life, with their own slang, their own dress, and a reputation for being loud, quick-witted, and hard to cheat. You meet the word in Dickens, in history books, in stories about old London, and almost nowhere else. Nobody today walks into a shop and calls the owner a costermonger. It is often to 'coster' in older writing. If you need the everyday modern words, they are 'greengrocer' (someone with a shop selling fruit and vegetables) or 'market trader' / 'street vendor' (someone selling from a stall). Learn 'costermonger' so you can read it, not so you can say it.
（舊時倫敦推車沿街叫賣的）蔬果小販
組成Two parts. 'Costard' was an old name for a large cooking apple, and '-monger' means a seller or dealer. So, literally, 'apple-seller' — and the meaning widened to cover fruit and vegetables generally.
同家族的字
- fishmongersame -monger 'seller' — one who sells fish
- ironmongersame -monger — one who sells tools and hardware
- warmongersame -monger, used with disapproval — someone who deals in war
- scaremongersame -monger — someone who spreads fear
原始詞典資料2 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
costermongernoun
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A vendor who sells fruit and vegetables from a cart or barrow in the street.
- A costermonger's barrow is also known as a shallow.
- I cannot tell, vertue is of ſo little regard in theſe coſtar-mongers times, that true valour is turnd berod […]
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A vendor who sells fruit and vegetables from a cart or barrow in the street.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。